Michael, what a weird thing to say. If you're browsing at work and you shouldn't be, well, that's one problem. If you work somewhere that "gay.com" is going to cause a fuss, that's an even bigger problem.

Michael: It's a perfectly sedate site. There are no glaring pictures at that link or anything. If the word "gay" is not safe for your work, then my blog isn't. One reason I picked that link rather than another is precisely because I know some people see her as representing the conservative side of things, and in fact she is admired by many, like me, who are not social conservatives, including many gay persons. She has been very warm toward gay people for a long time. I wanted you to see that.

It's not the word "gay" I'd worry about. It's the "monitor" who assumes gay.com is a dating or porn site, lacks the time or initiative to confirm that, and simply passes on to a supervisor that the employee was surfing a dating/porn site on company time. Obviously, you could correct that misconception, but that would require that your supervisor give you the opportunity to do so, rather than just look for a way to get rid of you.

Well, I really do not respect her much, although I am sure she is mostly harmless, as opposed to her former husband. But she is certainly in my prayers. Respect is not a precondition for those. Thank God!

"Do you expect your workplace monitor would react differently if you were surfing on some site called hotbabes.com?"

No. And lets not be preoccupied with sex - I'm sure there are places where looking at a site with the wrong political slant for no apparent reason could cause the same problem.

"What kind of Orwellian office is this?"

It's called the real world. This capability exists on any network, and unless you're the administrator you don't know whether it's being used, regardless of what you've been told.

"the automatic-data-gathering kind, not the person-looking-over-your-shoulder kind"

Nobody's watching everything you do in real time - the look over your shoulder comes after the automatic monitor flags something you looked at. Where you run into problems is when the person who is supposed to do that is, as I said, too busy or lazy to look over your shoulder and, out of ignorance or prejudice, jumps to a conclusion.